State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst’s bill to further protect Texans’ private medical information looks stuck; it’s been three weeks since it passed out of committee, and it hasn’t yet been set for a House vote.
Emily Ramshaw
Emily Ramshaw was the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune from 2016 to 2020. During her tenure, the Tribune — billed “one of the nonprofit news sector’s runaway success stories” — won a Peabody Award, several national Murrow Awards and top honors from the Online News Association.
Before joining the Tribune in 2010 as one of its founding reporters, Ramshaw spent six years at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” inside state institutions for the disabled. The Texas APME named Ramshaw its 2008 star reporter of the year. In 2016, she was named to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes.
A native of Washington, D.C., and the product of two journalist parents, Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history.
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Health care
CDC: Southern States Lag in Smoking Bans
Though secondhand smoke leads to nearly 50,000 U.S. deaths among nonsmoking adults every year, no southern state, including Texas, has adopted a smoke-free law for worksites, restaurants and bars, according to a new CDC report.
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Health care
Liveblog: A Conversation with Lance Armstrong
We liveblogged this morning’s Triblive with Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor who was instrumental in creating the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, and is pushing smoke-free workplace bills in the Legislature.
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Health care
House Gives Early OK to Health Care Compact
House lawmakers have put their initial stamp of approval on a health care compact — a partnership with other states to ask the federal government for control over Medicaid and Medicare in Texas.
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Health care
Cornyn Won’t Take “Nickel Tour” of Planned Parenthood
Sen. John Cornyn will not be “taking the nickel tour” of any Planned Parenthood branch, his office said Wednesday, in response to an offer by one of the organization’s Texas branches to arrange an informational visit.
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Health care
Ogden Revives Key Piece of Federal Health Reform
Implementing a key piece of federal health care reform in Texas — something Gov. Rick Perry has expressed his firm opposition to — may be back on the table.
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Economy
Senate Budget Takes Aim at Hospitals
It doesn’t include a “sick tax.” But the Senate version of the state’s 2012-13 budget still takes direct aim at hospitals, in an effort to find hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings and narrow the state’s revenue gap.
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Economy
Could Soda Tax Fill Budget Hole?
Republican lawmakers have vowed to close the budget hole without a new tax. But that hasn’t stopped Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, from proposing a penny per ounce tax on soft drinks.
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Health care
Doctors, Chiropractors Square Off Over Bill
After a fierce fight, the state’s leading physician groups won a change in legislation backed predominantly by Texas chiropractors that could have prevented one health care licensing agency from challenging the ruling of another in court.
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Economy
Senate Panel OKs Expanding Managed Care to Valley
A bill designed to find cost savings and efficiencies in Texas’ costly Medicaid program — and, more controversially, expand managed care into the Rio Grande Valley — is moving to Senate budget writers for consideration.
